COVINGTON, Ky. — The ballot measure asking Covington residents if they wanted to change the city’s municipal government structure from its current city manager form to a mayor-council form has succeeded.
As a result, the newly elected city commission will begin the process of transitioning the government come the new year.
"I'm very happy for the people of Covington," said restaurant owner Richard Dickmann, who also served as the chair of Covington Forward, the committee that worked to get the question on the ballot. "The committee, we felt very strongly that the mayor-council form of government will create an environment of growth and prosperity, and we're going to remain committed to whatever we need to do to support the newly elected commission while they seek to institute the transition over the next two years."
The ballot question posed the issue in the form of a yes-or-no question: “Are you in favor of the proposal entitled ‘Petition for the City of Covington to adopt aMayor-Council Plan’? Yes or No?”
The conversion had many advocates both among the business community and the city's elected leadership. Mayor Joe Meyer, sole mayoral candidate Ron Washington, both of the city commission's incumbent candidates--Tim Downing and Shannon Smith--as well as several of the challenger commission candidates expressed support for the measure. The Kenton County branch of the Democratic Party also came out in favor of the measure.
Covington’s current government is a city manager form of government. Under the current form, a city manager manages most of the day-to-day business of the city and its departments. Four elected city commissioners plus the elected mayor, who has relatively little direct authority, appoint the city manager.
Under the current model, both the commissioners and the mayor have a vote in local policies. Mayors are responsible for running meetings, signing contracts and acting as the public face of the city, but they share executive and legislative power with the commissioners. The mayor cannot veto legislation.
In other words, executive and legislative power is spread evenly between the commissioners and mayor. No one has any unilateral power; the commission and mayor can exercise power only as a group.
One of the key differences between the city manager form and the mayor-council form is that under the mayor-council form, the mayor has more authority to hire and fire city workers, unlike the current system, where every personnel decision is subject to a vote from the commission (Note: key department heads, like police and fire chiefs, are still subject to ratification from the legislature under both systems). Broadly speaking, the mayor-council form places more executive authority in the mayor's seat, granting the mayor greater latitude in running the city on a day-to-day basis. As result, the mayor-council form is sometimes referred to as the strong mayor form of government.
The mayor-council form is the more commonly-used form of government in Kentucky. Over half of the municipalities in the commonwealth use the mayor-council form of government, according to the Kentucky League of Cities. Nationwide, however, larger cities tend to use the city manager form: 54% of the nation’s cities with populations of 10,000 or more use the city manager form, according to the International City Managers Association.
Debate over the measure intensified leading up to the election. The Covington Forward committee spent about $65,000 in marketing and petition signature gathering, about $53,000 of which went to Hazlitt Industries, a political consulting firm. They also sought donations from several large regional businesses and business leaders, such as Corporex and Greg Fischer, chair of Fischer Homes. Dickmann himself contributed about $15,000 of his own money to the committee.
Covington Forward Expenditures
Contributors to the Covington Forward Committee
Arranged from highest total contributions to lowest total contributions
On the other hand, a contingent of Covington residents took up opposition to the conversion. JT Spence, a Wallace Woods resident and professor of political science at Thomas More University as well as two other Covington residents, Robert Horine and Dan Burr, spent about $4,500 producing their own advocacy mailers against the conversion.
Proponents of the conversion touted the mayor-council form of government as more straightforward, efficient and agreeable to economic development. Proponents also argued that it would make the city more effective in dealing with other government entities. Opponents, on the other hand, worried that a conversion could lead to an over-concentration of power in the office of the mayor or that it could serve as a vehicle for the municipal government to be captured by special interests.
Covington Mayor Joe Meyer gave a good summation of the proponents' point of view at a meeting of the Covington City Commission on Oct. 22.
"So based on my experience, one of the major changes that we need is a mayor who is empowered to speak on behalf of the city government as a whole when he's negotiating with national leaders, with state leaders, with other regional leaders," Meyer said. "We cannot hold ourselves hostages to what used to be irreverently referred to as the rule of three, and that risk is always there with the structure that we have."
The "rule of three" Meyer mentioned refers to the practice in commission-style legislatures that requires three out of five votes from a city commission to enact policy. Meyer and others have characterized the current city manager government as opaque, sluggish and unaccountable to the electorate as much of the day-to-day power to run the city falls under the purview of the city manager, who is not popularly elected.
Opponents, meanwhile, argued that the city manager form was a way of preventing corruption and overly powerful executives.
"I don't even really think the people that wanted to pass this have any idea about what they're trying to accomplish other than solidify power in one person," Spence said.
Now that voters have approved converting the government, the newly elected city commissioners will now be responsible for writing ordinances outlining details of the new government – including how many council seats the city would have – by the end of their two-year terms, at which point the commission seats will be abolished. Residents will then vote to fill the new council seats in 2026.
Spence wondered what the future might hold, especially as it related to how the transition would occur. Dickmann, meanwhile, was more optimistic.
"The single most important question now is to ask, what is our goal?" Spence said. "Where on the spectrum between accountability and efficiency, where would we be happy as a community? And that wasn't something that was addressed in the ballot election itself. There's going to have to be a lot more energy spent on structure and how the council will work with the mayor."
"I am pretty excited about the future of the city, and I'm excited for Ron Washington and the new commissioners to get their opportunity to tailor this form of government to the city," Dickmann said. "Not every city runs a form of mayor-council the same. You need to tailor it to the city and make sure that we've got everything we need, all the tools in our toolbox to make the city the best place to live in Northern Kentucky."
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